Waste Disposal Panel To Meet In Cromwell

CROMWELL — The town's newly formed solid waste disposal committee will hold its organizational meeting tonight despite being shy two members from the business community.

The committee is looking for alternatives to the town's practice of paying the disposal fees for local trash trucked to the Connecticut Resources Recovery Authority incinerator in Hartford. It has been discovered that several private trash haulers are adding trash from other towns to Cromwell garbage they collect since the town pays the dumping fee. In most other communities that have private collection, the hauler pays the fee to the CRRA.

``It's time to move ahead,'' First Selectman Ryk Nelson said Tuesday. ``We have to get going.''

The meeting, at 7 tonight in Room 222 of town hall, will take place without representation from the business community, which has not responded to Nelson's appeal for help.

Nelson said that in early June, he attended the monthly meeting of the Cromwell division of the Middlesex County Chamber of Commerce, in which he outlined the committee's purpose and asked for volunteers.

As of Tuesday, no one had offered to join, but that may change soon if the newly named chairman of the division has anything to say about it.

``I didn't realize that no one stepped forward,'' said Steven Gorss, the division's chairman and owner of the Super 8 Motel at 1 Industrial Park Road.

When Nelson ``puts out a call like that,'' the business community should respond, Gorss said, adding that he will be in touch with Nelson soon to learn more about the committee's needs.

Gorss, who recently succeeded Kathryn Ekstrom as chairman of the Cromwell division, said he is not yet ``up to speed'' on all the issues affecting local businesses.

``We are not going to be timid about getting involved in these things,'' Gorss said.

Becker and O'Rourke said Tuesday the committee will initially be gathering information about how other towns dispose of trash and handle CRRA's tipping fees. In the fiscal year that ended June 30, Cromwell budgeted $465,000 for tipping fees, but the selectmen added $75,000 to the account to cover a projected shortfall.

``We won't make it next year either,'' Becker said. ``We'll be out of money by February.''

In Middletown, except for the city's downtown sanitation district, which is serviced by municipal crews, private haulers pass on the tipping fee to their customers, O'Rouke said.

``Outside that district it's a free-for-all,'' O'Rourke said, with at least seven residential and four or five commercial haulers competing for contracts.

Middletown ``has nothing to do with the tipping fees,'' which would explain why residential trash-hauling bills are higher in Middletown than Cromwell, O'Rourke said.

Depending on the company, the yearly bills in Middletown can range from $160 to $250, O'Rourke said, adding that her bill in Cromwell, where residents pay the tipping fees in taxes, is $140.

The fees charged by CRRA are to be expected because of the expense of building and running its incinerator, O'Rourke said.